At the end of the year, the most important task for many units is not to be busy with business, but to write summaries.
Nowadays, many summaries need to be reported in PPT. The advantages of PPT are pictures and texts, and dazzling multimedia animations. As a result, the summary form is becoming more and more brilliant, but what about the content? It’s getting more and more difficult to write, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people buying summary templates online at the end of the year to cope with the problem.
If you just take someone else’s template and change it into your own summary, the quality of the summary written in this way will naturally be low.
If you want to improve the quality of your year-end summary, the most important thing is not where to find a template or how to beautify it, but to think clearly about these issues.
1. Clarify the reporting target: Who do you want to report to?
When writing a work summary internally, it may be reported to the immediate leader, or you may help the leader write summary materials for the higher-level leaders to read;
When writing a work summary externally, it may be To the authority, perhaps to an external expert, perhaps to the client of the service.
The requirements, writing style, materials, and framework of work summaries on these occasions are very different.
Many people are accustomed to copying and pasting when writing summaries, but when faced with different reporting targets, can you just copy and paste?
If you write report materials for different people, you must learn to think about the problem from their perspective and refine the materials from the height they need. Only then can your year-end summary PPT be on target.
2. Clarify your own level: What is your summary focus?
It is not enough to just know the target of the work report. You must also understand your own level to determine the type of report.
Internally, it can be recommended to consider the classification of grass-roots, middle-level, and high-level. The grass-roots often focus on collecting materials, the middle-level often focus on refining ideas, and the high-level often focus on proposing visions. These determine the tone of your report and the selection of materials. There are differences.
When the grassroots write year-end summaries, they usually report on their own work. To put it bluntly, there is no credit for their hard work. They are all about the same work, and they just compete to see who has the most weight. One disadvantage of this is that the more work summaries are written, the thicker they become. However, in the eyes of leaders, whoever writes thick work summaries has done more and is better. In fact, this also makes sense - if you don’t pay attention to accumulation, you will not be able to accumulate. Pay attention to collecting materials. At the end of the year, where will you get the materials to write a thick summary?
If the grassroots dare to write down the year-end summary, either the work performance is too outstanding, or there is really no good performance to write down, or the unit is inherently a formalistic place. Which one do you think you are?
But writing summaries at the middle level requires higher requirements for oneself. Merely being able to keep a running account is not enough; one must also be able to summarize and refine. The middle-level managers generally have to put forward their department's work ideas for the next year based on the previous stage's business analysis. This cannot just be a lack of performance, but also a combination of depth and intensity.
What do you think about the market? How high should you aim? Why is this goal appropriate? What are you going to do? What do your peers do? Why do we choose to do this? What are the risks of doing this? Have risk response measures been taken? What will be the consequences if it is not completed?
These issues should be systematically considered in middle-level reports, but in fact, most business analysis reports only have data and no analysis. Everyone spends their energy on sorting out data or beautifying PPT.
As for senior management’s summary, more emphasis is placed on strategic planning. Some people will laugh at senior management who only paint the pie without a vision, but as senior management, we have repeatedly convinced employees that we have the ability to see the future development prospects and space of the industry. , having the confidence to seize the commanding heights of the business is a very important measure to stimulate team morale. These are not called summaries, but leaders. For senior management, a good summary is not about who writes more, but who sees further.
3. Clarify the purpose of the report: Why do you want to report?
Even an ordinary work summary has different purposes on different occasions.
If it is a year-end inventory, you may need to summarize the gains and losses of the year and make plans for next year?
If it is a project summary, you may need to predict risks and think about where you can seek countermeasures if risks come.
If it’s a New Year’s resolution, and your goals need to be guaranteed, what resources do you need, and where can you get these resources?
If a work summary is just a work account, there is really no need to write it. After all, most of the important things you do are known to the leader. If the leader doesn’t know, either it means that your Work is not important, or your performance is not important.
Wise people will not just summarize in the work summary, but strive for various resources through reporting opportunities. After all, the work summary is an important weapon in the system that allows you to communicate with your superiors. .
Some friends’ work performance is really not good enough. The data is not good, the trend is unfavorable, and the performance is not enough. Even if you really have "nothing", you must find a way to find the "local" bright spots. If there is no merit, just work hard, if quality cannot match quantity; if there is no breakthrough, go for depth, something with depth and connotation will not be effective in a short while; if there is nothing, then go for vision! This year’s shortcomings are paving the way for greater progress next year!
These little tricks are actually just to avoid being criticized. It is impossible to work smoothly every time. However, if you can summarize your failures and know how to improve your growth, your leader will give you another chance when you are criticized. of.
4. Clarify the structure of the year-end summary: Which framework do you need to use?
It is most taboo to formalize the work summary, or write it as a running account. If it is a running account, no one will think that your work is well done, so there must be a framework for reporting work.
For example, these two common ones:
Or some more general classic frameworks:
In addition, the reporting thinking that leaders in China tend to prefer is to focus on points or to cover all aspects. ? Split into two or grasp the big and let go of the small? If there is really no other way, try the structure of one point of view and three arguments. This is the so-called "one center, three basic points" writing method.
But there are only two things that leaders want to see in the work report: either increase revenue or reduce expenditure.
If the performance is not good and open source is incompetent, then talk about how much cost has been saved for the company, or you can also use it to highlight your hard work and overtime work.
Linking the summary directly to the issues that the leader cares about at least shows that your existence still has a little value. When writing reports at the grassroots level, the general idea is nothing more than this.
The adjusted reporting structure makes good use of the leader's cost management thinking, and speaks in a language familiar to the leader, which effectively illustrates the connection between trivial work and important cost control work. This draws on the power of the cost management thinking framework.